The Chapters of Life

By Dennis Ufot Ph. D

This book is rather enlightening us of what could potentially obtain in each chapters of life to stimulate readers thought and inspirations as it relates to their own chapters of life. It will draw you back to think or re-think about what your life’s script is all about and help you to determine your purpose driven life.

Everything operates around a cycle. Time, Life, Day and night, career, you name it. It is important that everyone come to terms with this knowledge because this will surely have a positive influence in our thoughts, attitude to things, our behavior towards one another and most especially it will help to shape our belief, streamline our character and determine our destiny. This cycle of events is natural and cannot be stopped. Stopping or removing a battery from a clock can only stop the particular clock from functioning and cannot stop the movement of time universally, neither can it slow it down. There is this popular rhyme we used to sing at pre-nursery which got stuck in my memory till date and so it goes ‘tick says the clock tick tick, what you have to do, do quick’. It simply implies that having the knowledge that the time cannot be stopped for any reason, and I have grown to see that it has never stopped not even for a second, one should know that anything worth doing is worth doing right and on time according to the chapter of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781973692256

Dennis Ufot Ph. D

Dennis Ufot, Ph.D., an engineering economist, is a corporate member, fellow and chartered manager of the Chartered Management Institute, United Kingdom; fellow, Institute of Management consultant, Nigeria; and a corporate member with the Institute of Engineering Technology, London; the Society of Petroleum Engineers, American Productivity and Quality Center, and the Association of Non-Executive Directors, United Kingdom. He has over twenty-five years of experience in the energy industry. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from Atlantic International University, U.S.A.; a Master of Science in engineering management from Brunel University, United Kingdom; and a higher national diploma in mechanical engineering from the College of Technology, Calabar, Nigeria.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 Dennis Ufot, Ph. D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-9224-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-9225-6 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/03/2020

CONTENTS

Preface / Foreword

Dedication

Acknowledgement

The Hidden Truths about the Fundamentals of Life

Introduction

Chapter 1     The Chapter of life at Birth and the beginning

Chapter 2     The Chapter of life at Infancy

Chapter 3     The Chapter of life at Childhood

Chapter 4     Youthfulness as a Chapter of life

Chapter 5     Adulthood as a Chapter of life

Chapter 6     The Chapter of life in Parenting

Chapter 7     Grand parenting Chapter of life

Chapter 8     The End of Every Mortals as the final Chapter of life

Chapter 9     The Chapter in the History of Nations

Chapter 10   The Dilemmas of life

Chapter 11   Final Reflections

Bibliography

About the Author

PREFACE / FOREWORD

I likened the life we live to a book we read in the sense that it evolves in pages and in chapters. You have to follow the sequence to make meaning out of it. Life like everything else created by God has a beginning and has an end. The beginning is the introduction and the end is the conclusion. These are sure to happen but clouded with uncertainty of time. There is the main body that contains the narratives and main events of all that life itself holds for everyone or what everyone makes of it. A measure of the duration from the beginning through the body to the conclusion tells how long one has lived and the impact he has made through life’s venture. The impact that one creates in life however does not depend on how long he lives but on how well.

God said through HIS prophet Isaiah ‘I knew you while still in your mother’s womb’’(Jerimiah 1:5). This is a clear evidence of the handwork of the creator in us. If He knew us as He said which is true, it then implies that He has a hand in our creation and a purpose for us in our formation, living and eventual death. And this is the script containing our individual life’s plan from the beginning to the end that had been written about us to act while here on earth. Technically speaking, I call it a road map from birth to death. It makes a lot of meaning following life sequentially as if reading a book so as to make and give real meaning to it. Like a book, jumping ahead to another chapter without digesting the chapter at hand will only elude you the understanding of preceding acts. And it will only be normal that you reluctantly or painstakingly revert back to start all over to comprehend the true understanding of the preceding acts to fully flow in the right direction of understanding. In real life, age goes with time. But wisdom and understanding are gifts from the creator and can grow over time and not necessarily with age. And this is why utmost care must be applied in living right as reversing the trend when something had happened is somewhat not possible because as a being, you naturally would have outgrown that stage in your spirit mind and in the physical. It only takes a gem to keep shame apart and return back to status quo to pick it up from where it was left out. But it is also better to take this bold step back to be on track of your life’s script where possible without minding if it seems late. It is better to enter the heavens with half your body than to be complete and condemned to eternal death; (Mark 9:45). So it is important that we understand what obtains in each chapter of life to be able to follow it through because our ultimate assessment would be against our life scripts.

Unlike a book that you could re-read the chapters, in live the chapters seems irreversible once that stage is past whether accomplished or not.

This book is an outcome of a deep thought, meditation, reflections and firsthand experience about life’s sequential circumstances that the author belief is worth understanding by this generation so as to pre-inform and guide our actions to act our life’s scripts well. It is not exhaustive on it’s own and does not serve as a cast in stone prescription for individuals to adopt as solution to their life challenges. As our DNAs are different so is the scripts and chapters of everyone’s lives. Agreed that there are similarities as basis of each chapters but it is only on the fundamentals. That is in the sense that everyone would be conceived by the mating of a male and a female. The conception for humans takes months before delivery "while it varies for other species’’. And it expected for everyone to also die at some point unless the world abruptly ends. As part of the script of life, who your parents would be, Which family you will belong, your race and country are pre-determined by the creator and you have no control over these. Living your life to fulfill your mandate is a gift from our creator requiring His presence and guidance to do the things of life rightly. Like King David rightly said ‘The steps of a righteous man is ordered by The Lord (Psalm 37:23) so that he can fulfill his script according to what was written concerning him at creation.

This book is rather enlightening us of what could potentially obtain in each chapters of life to stimulate readers thought and inspirations as it relates to their own chapters of life. It will draw you back to think or re-think about what your life’s script is all about and help you to determine your purpose driven life.

Everything operates around a cycle. Time, Life, Day and night, career, you name it. It is important that everyone come to terms with this knowledge because this will surely have a positive influence in our thoughts, attitude to things, our behavior towards one another and most especially it will help to shape our belief, streamline our character and determine our destiny. This cycle of events is natural and cannot be stopped. Stopping or removing a battery from a clock can only stop the particular clock from functioning and cannot stop the movement of time universally, neither can it slow it down. There is this popular rhyme we used to sing at pre-nursery which got stuck in my memory till date and so it goes ‘tick says the clock tick tick, what you have to do, do quick’. It simply implies that having the knowledge that the time cannot be stopped for any reason, and I have grown to see that it has never stopped not even for a second, one should know that anything worth doing at all is worth doing right and on time according to the chapter of his life.

I have witness so many people without this knowledge wasting their time mainly at youth. And Suddenly, they realize that their youth is gone and all the things they could have done are either started late in life or not done at all because they are caught up in a different progressive chapter and cycle of life. And nothing can be demoralizing than when you discover late in life that you have thrown away ample opportunities to have impacted your generation early in your life when you were in that chapter of life to do so.

Most lived careless lives as youth indulging in immorality, stealing, robbery, clubbing, smoking and involving in crimes that potential removed them from the society into prisons as criminals and later they find themselves in the older age chapter of life that in most cases is too late to make amends. Some are even pleased that they did not lose their lives in the process. They may have done this in ignorance which is no excuse, but the driver at that time was the belief that they are enjoying themselves. At the old age chapter where youthful energy has failed them and they could not do those things, they return back to their senses and it is natural that they feel bad with life wasted memories of the many opportunities they blew away as they see other younger persons in their early chapter of life excelling well above their expectations. But working things out for your old age starts from when you were a child. Your ability to accept the training that you were given, accept chastisement, and follow instructions were the recipe that you needed to lay a grand future for the rest chapters of your life. Obedience is always better than sacrifice. Obedience cost nothing but sacrifice cost a lot in time and resources.

Unfortunately most children and youth have a deceptive picture of the chapters of life at the beginning and sees this early upbringing as delay to adulthood, unnecessary punishment, burden and waste of time wanting rather to grow in their own ways. There is a way that seems righteous to a man as the scripture says and the end thereof is destruction. The Holy scriptures already has pointed this out and most people have read it but compliance to step a bit backward and understand what it truly means is lacking. Children will always rush to be adult and soon after rush back to be youth which they would not. At this time it is late. That is why we have youth fathers and mothers in our societies. Our popular Ibibio language proverbs says ‘youthfulness cannot come twice’ implying that once lost it is lost. One will hardly have the energy and vigor of a youth at the adult chapter of life. What you have at this time should be knowledge and understanding based on your knowledge acquired early in the chapters of your life. And if you truly had the wisdom then are you capable and qualified to instruct, and teach the young ones in preparation for their own life at adulthood.

In our society today this is perceived to be lacking somehow. Most countries policies give some kind of rights to children at a tender age that tend to be detrimental to them at adult age and they capitalized on this and begin to claim these rights which they do not understand where it leads. This clearly undermines and impede early training. The need to comply with government policy then forces parents to spare the rod and spoil the child, and yet the government have a hand in ensuring proper upbringing of the younger people to be part of the future society responsible enough to support the society profitably. Agreed though that some parents over time may have overused their power to tend by deploying coerce instrument that may have been detrimental to the wellbeing of the child leading to government over interventions also. This is why we are all guilty today of the decadence we see in our world. We spare the rod and spoil the child and the same child becomes a nuisance in our society today causing us pain and anguish, absence of peace, and general moral decadence.

I also acknowledge that in the chapters or cycle of life there could naturally be some delays to vital accomplishments attributed to nature. It happens and most often this require patience, self-belief, persistence, trust in the supernatural to recover, and help from older adults or professionals to overcome and be re-instated on course. When there is recovery it is always glorious and enters the arsenal of history as learning to others. In this instances it requires perseverance, belief, and concentration on your power to possess your possession and it shall surely be done.

This is the focus of this book. It is to enumerate the chapters of life in the cycle that the creator Himself had designed it to be beginning from birth to death. And there is nothing anybody can do about it other than to do his or her best and to make the best use of the time in the cycle or chapter of life that he finds himself. This is the only time that as you retroactively look back at your accomplishments, you would say like Paul the Apostle that ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Let us read on!

DEDICATION

This book, The chapters of life is dedicated to the Almighty God, the author of all chapters of life and creator of the cycle of time with which all things revolves.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I want to firstly acknowledge the Holy Spirit for impressing it upon my heart the inspiration to write about the Chapters of life.

I also hereby acknowledge close friends and associates that supported me to prove read this work. You have indeed added value to it.

Lots of suggestion and inputs came from personal experiences and inspirations which I treasured.

THE HIDDEN TRUTHS ABOUT

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF LIFE

There are life’s fundamental truths that one must know and applied in order to live life fully to it’s potentials and be truly happy too. Until you know these, life can be worrying, miserable, shackled in clouds of uncertainty, uninteresting, unsatisfying, unmeaningful and empty yet our life is made to be lived happily without toil by simply working and following the rules as defined by creation.

Let us start with